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Now for a minerally-type worldbuilding post! There is this type of material with two different names depending on what era we're talking about. In Ancient times it's called "Godsblood", its related to granite and is very strong material used for buildings, statues, etc. It has a pattern similar to marble, and the overall color ranges from smoky gray, to green-gray, to a deep, saturated green. There are also two variations - a "normal" type and one with unusual swirling veins intruding through the normal pattern. This vein shines a rust or reddish color when the light hits it, and singular swirls are also very large ~ averaging several feet across.

What is notable about this is where it cones from - Due to the nature of The Beacon being primarily underground, Aki has to constantly mine himself out to make more room to build stuff. One of the materials getting mined out is Godsblood - for the most part it is the normal variant but a certain percentage of it has the swirls. The material is desirable - for the most part it goes right back into The Beacon’s buildings but Aki does allow some of it to be sold off with the funds going into the city's treasury for public works, etc. Outside of the Beacon, the swirl variant is most commonly used in temples, shrines, and art/sculpture.

I have attempted to edit some stock photos from pexels so you have an idea of what's going on (The scale of the veined pieces should actually be even bigger but. you get the idea)

In modern day this same material is called "Ironeyes" and the name is exclusively referring to the variant with the swirls. It's pretty rare, some specimens are in museums and such but the majority are in private collections or in the black market. Nobody can figure out where it actually came from and they probably won't ever, because what they have is what was shifted over from the plane split. The Beacon doesn't exist in current Reality, they'd only find the normal variant in the same location.

Now, back to Ancient times, a similar phenomenon does occur at the other cities, but with different materials and not at this scale. For example, Haven has a ton of trees growing on and around it. If you were to split them you would see some unusual patterns in the wood and some trees would also have similar looking veins running through them. However, Kanta prefers sourcing wood elsewhere instead of logging their own trees, so you don't see as much of that.

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Reblog if you’re OK with people sending you asks about your OCs, ‘sonas or even about yourself

[corvarrow]

Highlights of the weekend!!

-So my paint jars have been these plastic powder drink containers that I drew on many years ago... they have suffered some damage and are very hard to clean so instead of trying to fix them at this point I redrew the pictures and had them printed as one-off ceramic mugs. They came in over the weekend and turned out very cute! I'm not sure the best way to get pictures of them but can't wait to share once I've come up with something

-Should have another worldbuilding/materials style post sometime this week. I spent a chunk of the day yesterday figuring out how to paint a marble texture cause there's this very specific look this stuff has. (It's marble but with like...a bonus factor) Now I think I need to put it on something because I don't know that you guys will find just marbley rectangles + text all that interesting 🤔

-Sona work IS continuing as I'd really like to redraw my icon... might show some of those ideas later this week as well

-Finally did end up installing Postybirb last night. I still need to play around with the settings and see how it all works but once I figure it out it will hopefully be nice. Trying to crosspost stuff just takes so much energy out of me man I cannot deal with reformatting tag lists all the time

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My current project isn't ready to share yet so I thought I'd share these instead! This is a set of Bloodborne coasters I made a couple years ago. They are cement blanks I found on clearance at Joanns, and what I did was draw the runes, carefully dremel drilled into them at an angle (so they look like they were carved), then painted and sealed them.

In case you're curious of the rune names:

Moon, Formless Odeon

Lake, Hunter

[corvarrow]

My current project isn't ready to share yet so I thought I'd share these instead! This is a set of Bloodborne coasters I made a couple years ago. They are cement blanks I found on clearance at Joanns, and what I did was draw the runes, carefully dremel drilled into them at an angle (so they look like they were carved), then painted and sealed them.

In case you're curious of the rune names:

Moon, Formless Odeon

Lake, Hunter

[corvarrow]

I didn't know what to put on the first page of my new sketchbook, so I decided to test some Grabie acrylic markers, featuring Sigilyph. I haven't drawn a pokemon in a billion years, but Sigilyph is one of my favorites. 8D I just think it looks neat. It's like an unown, but fancy

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hi, could you draw a Iron Treads? it´s a pokemon

Hello, I don't do free requests unless it's of my own OCs. :^)

Please support artists and pay someone if you want something specific done.

[corvarrow]

I didn't know what to put on the first page of my new sketchbook, so I decided to test some Grabie acrylic markers, featuring Sigilyph. I haven't drawn a pokemon in a billion years, but Sigilyph is one of my favorites. 8D I just think it looks neat. It's like an unown, but fancy

[corvarrow]

This Year:

How it started: I will finish up my WIPs and start some new projects. I will play new games from my backlog I have preselected. I will start some new books. I will

How it's going: Hm I think I will revisit Vampire Survivors and try to get as many achievements as possible this time

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Alright guys it's now time for a very exciting worldbuilding post: SETTING MAPS!! There are several in this post so I hope you enjoy the ride and please feel free to ask me if anything catches your interest.

I will start this off by saying these are very basic, and I only marked off a couple points of interest, but I still think there is some fun stuff to talk about here. Due to the massive amount of info I am also just going to have to skip some background info. Additionally: this continent is the main setting, but there ARE at least two more. It's also huge, like comparable to at least North America in size, so please imagine there are a ton of additional features (such as rivers, lakes, additional biomes, settlements, etc) here that I just didn't mark off.

Above is the very general Ancient Era map and we are just going to get really note heavy from here. Not everything is fully named and may or may not be adjusted later. One final note before I start is there is a conlang involved. I also haven't fully translated everything but I think in this case that works in our favor, which we'll get to in a sec.

Here is the map of ancient world sentient cities and a couple pieces of information. The four* sentient cities are called Sovereigns, and they all have avatar bodies (their original sion bodies).

*Ahveph, their creator, has a "spot" but at this point it's not acting as a sentient city and it doesn't have an avatar

Their language does makes a distinction between them as a location and them as an entity when using the full name. When dealing with shorthand though the first section of the name gets used to refer to the entity and the second for the location. For example, with Fatewinder's Beacon, "Fatewinder" = entity and "The Beacon" = location. I do have the first sections translated into conlang so we'll also start using them in this post, so if you see the conlang name I'm now talking about entities and the English names are locations. By the way, Fatewinder is Akiyohm, or "(to) wind fate". His siblings are Kantalys (Kanta), Sennamet (Sen), and Tenemohr (Ten).

Worth noting here that the avatar bodies can travel, but they ARE "tethered" to their main city bodies. They can visit each other, but they can't go much farther than that, meaning they have been locked to this continent and the waters immediately around it.

What is also really important to know is that they do NOT look like normal cities. They are actually complex megastructures, though they contain all things you would expect in cities including transportation systems. These megastructures are also shaped differently from each other. The Beacon is in a desert and is mainly vertical - about 10% of it is above ground and the rest is under. The Reach is across a mountainside and is built at an angle with the most terracing of the lot. Rest is in some riverlands and is mainly horizontal. Haven is on some heavily forested karst landscape - it's also horizontal but it has less levels than Rest does because Kanta chose to stretch it out farther.

Next we have the original territory map. When they first started here, they got along fine, but eventually when they figured out they could influence other magic wells besides the ones they lived in, they had some issues with who got what well. Finally they decided to split this out into roughly equal pies and for a while they were fine with that.

Influencing the wells into certain magic types also causes the area around them to have a magic bias towards that type. For example most of Aki's wells are wind type, so his whole region tends to have wind magic and they can construct lots of windmills to take advantage of that. If they change territory lines then the wells in that area will change as well, though they won't change easily if the area is under war.

From here on out you can consider these pies to be Kingdoms, with the Sovereigns being their capitals, and the Sovereigns also being Actual sovereigns.

Ahveph's "spot" (Seat of the Creator) remains a neutral event ground for the entirety of ancient history.

Also on this map I can point out Sunbath, which is a major story location. It is a remote village that ended up on Aki's trading route. It is also where Jas happens to live.

So yeah they still could not fully agree on territories which led to multiple disputes and actual wars over the millennia, until they finally ended up with this around the peak. Kanta has the largest pie by far, then Sen, Ten, and finally Aki.

At peak pre-cataclysm, this civilization had gotten quite advanced, as in "farther in the future than Earth" and "how are we feeling about the vast reaches of space everyone" kind of advanced. The major difference is that sions wield magic, so most of their advancements were heavily magic based rather than using physical science. Anl quick example of what I mean by that would be like, batteries - although they could make electrochemical batteries like we use on earth, they would more likely make them using lightning magic instead.

Well things couldn't stay good forever. Events led to the cataclysm and caused the plane split - literally there now three different planes are stacked on top of each other and they are not exactly the same.

First is the original Reality plane, now called Time's End. This plane has become, to put it politely, completely fucked. Although plants like it, and there are some leftover constructs like corvafex, there aren't any people or animals anymore. It is blown out with magic and very few natural processes work like they are supposed to. The time of day is locked in bands by region (see next map), time flows inconsistently, and the weather and seasons don't cycle, they are locked at random by region. This doesn't mean things are entirely in stasis though - the tides still move, which is quite clear in places such as the inland sea, and the shore near the Glassworks. At The Beacon, which had already been near a dune field, Aki's wind towers have gone without maintenance for so long that they stir up huge sandstorms every so often like clockwork.

Technically, it is still possible to reach this plane. It's most easily reached by (modern) sions because mirrors do exist here, but it is desolate. Non-sions can occasionally end up here too, but with the resonance levels and time fuckery it is not advised to stay too long.

This map is just to show how the time of day is locked. So for example, the Seat of the Creator is in perpetual midday, the Beacon is stuck in the afternoon, Rest and the glassworks are still stuck in the morning, and the Reach is at night.

The second plane is the Memory plane. It is called this because there are copies of settlements (mostly from the new Reality) on this plane, but not actually anyone in them. The plane is actually empty, like nobody ever actually lived here, as opposed to Time's End where it is empty because everyone is dead. It still remains quite eerie to explore however. It's just tons and tons of ghost cities essentially. Most of these copies look fairly normal (if not just eerie), but not all of them as the Memory plane still contains some resonance. It's not nearly as bad as Time's End but there are some cases where you'll have like, an entire empty city permanently covered in glowing fog.

So as far as Ahveph goes - it is an entity integrated into the whole planet, and it COULD manipulate things where ever, it just chose to focus on the areas the ancient sions lived in. After the planes split it was almost completely immobilized except for this one location. It can still sorta see things but it cannot do shit unless it's here. What it has currently chosen to do is to act as a city and build modern sions to live in it. It's success at being a city like the Sovereigns is kind of debatable but to be fair it is really a different beast entirely anyway.

Named characters that actively live here are Cavi, Torch, Tower, and the Daydreamer. While it is mostly populated by sions it does sometimes allow non-sions as well, like Subore actually lives here. He is also is one of the only humans that has learned modern sionic.

This is also probably a good time to mention modern sions are fairly different from ancient sions. Ancients are all sapient automatons - they have A Process to build some more (there is in fact some "genealogy" and "genetics" involved but it gets...kind of wacky) but they are 100% new builds every time one gets made. On the other hand, Modern sions are not 100% new, they are kind of doppelgangers - specific humans/shifters from reality are identified, their essence copied, changed up a bit, and then the copies are stuffed into a new construct body and let loose in the city. A good example of this is Sy and Tower, Sy being the original guy (a "Source"), and Tower being the sion that was created.

Aaand finally we have the current new Reality plane. It has been entirely repopulated by humans and shifters. The ancient sions have been largely forgotten except for whatever archaeologists dig up. Since they don't have any way to translate the relics being dug up they are just called "The Lost Race". Modern sions are basically a crypid at this point that everyone calls some variation of "mirror demon" and there is no connection that these two are actually related.

The overall technology level is similar to Earth. Maybe slightly ahead, but it is mostly based in the physical sciences with some augmentation with whatever magic relics they've figured out how to work.

Ahveph can technically manipulate things at Five since it's at the same location, but it generally does not. It has however, made a very convenient shortcut for explorers to travel back and forth between Reality and Memory.

Character locations on this plane:

Five - Sy's family had moved here from overseas when he was young. He grew up here but moved somewhere between Calanom and Five. His mom, dad, and older brother still live here though.

Calanom - Yeah so the kids (Cody, Mady, and Static/Shaun) all live here. Jack (Cavi's Source) was from here as well.

Mercury Falls - Subore and Riley (Torch's Source) are from here, though Subore didn't want to stay after Riley passed away.

[corvarrow]

Alright guys it's now time for a very exciting worldbuilding post: SETTING MAPS!! There are several in this post so I hope you enjoy the ride and please feel free to ask me if anything catches your interest.

I will start this off by saying these are very basic, and I only marked off a couple points of interest, but I still think there is some fun stuff to talk about here. Due to the massive amount of info I am also just going to have to skip some background info. Additionally: this continent is the main setting, but there ARE at least two more. It's also huge, like comparable to at least North America in size, so please imagine there are a ton of additional features (such as rivers, lakes, additional biomes, settlements, etc) here that I just didn't mark off.

Above is the very general Ancient Era map and we are just going to get really note heavy from here. Not everything is fully named and may or may not be adjusted later. One final note before I start is there is a conlang involved. I also haven't fully translated everything but I think in this case that works in our favor, which we'll get to in a sec.

Here is the map of ancient world sentient cities and a couple pieces of information. The four* sentient cities are called Sovereigns, and they all have avatar bodies (their original sion bodies).

*Ahveph, their creator, has a "spot" but at this point it's not acting as a sentient city and it doesn't have an avatar

Their language does makes a distinction between them as a location and them as an entity when using the full name. When dealing with shorthand though the first section of the name gets used to refer to the entity and the second for the location. For example, with Fatewinder's Beacon, "Fatewinder" = entity and "The Beacon" = location. I do have the first sections translated into conlang so we'll also start using them in this post, so if you see the conlang name I'm now talking about entities and the English names are locations. By the way, Fatewinder is Akiyohm, or "(to) wind fate". His siblings are Kantalys (Kanta), Sennamet (Sen), and Tenemohr (Ten).

Worth noting here that the avatar bodies can travel, but they ARE "tethered" to their main city bodies. They can visit each other, but they can't go much farther than that, meaning they have been locked to this continent and the waters immediately around it.

What is also really important to know is that they do NOT look like normal cities. They are actually complex megastructures, though they contain all things you would expect in cities including transportation systems. These megastructures are also shaped differently from each other. The Beacon is in a desert and is mainly vertical - about 10% of it is above ground and the rest is under. The Reach is across a mountainside and is built at an angle with the most terracing of the lot. Rest is in some riverlands and is mainly horizontal. Haven is on some heavily forested karst landscape - it's also horizontal but it has less levels than Rest does because Kanta chose to stretch it out farther.

Next we have the original territory map. When they first started here, they got along fine, but eventually when they figured out they could influence other magic wells besides the ones they lived in, they had some issues with who got what well. Finally they decided to split this out into roughly equal pies and for a while they were fine with that.

Influencing the wells into certain magic types also causes the area around them to have a magic bias towards that type. For example most of Aki's wells are wind type, so his whole region tends to have wind magic and they can construct lots of windmills to take advantage of that. If they change territory lines then the wells in that area will change as well, though they won't change easily if the area is under war.

From here on out you can consider these pies to be Kingdoms, with the Sovereigns being their capitals, and the Sovereigns also being Actual sovereigns.

Ahveph's "spot" (Seat of the Creator) remains a neutral event ground for the entirety of ancient history.

Also on this map I can point out Sunbath, which is a major story location. It is a remote village that ended up on Aki's trading route. It is also where Jas happens to live.

So yeah they still could not fully agree on territories which led to multiple disputes and actual wars over the millennia, until they finally ended up with this around the peak. Kanta has the largest pie by far, then Sen, Ten, and finally Aki.

At peak pre-cataclysm, this civilization had gotten quite advanced, as in "farther in the future than Earth" and "how are we feeling about the vast reaches of space everyone" kind of advanced. The major difference is that sions wield magic, so most of their advancements were heavily magic based rather than using physical science. Anl quick example of what I mean by that would be like, batteries - although they could make electrochemical batteries like we use on earth, they would more likely make them using lightning magic instead.

Well things couldn't stay good forever. Events led to the cataclysm and caused the plane split - literally there now three different planes are stacked on top of each other and they are not exactly the same.

First is the original Reality plane, now called Time's End. This plane has become, to put it politely, completely fucked. Although plants like it, and there are some leftover constructs like corvafex, there aren't any people or animals anymore. It is blown out with magic and very few natural processes work like they are supposed to. The time of day is locked in bands by region (see next map), time flows inconsistently, and the weather and seasons don't cycle, they are locked at random by region. This doesn't mean things are entirely in stasis though - the tides still move, which is quite clear in places such as the inland sea, and the shore near the Glassworks. At The Beacon, which had already been near a dune field, Aki's wind towers have gone without maintenance for so long that they stir up huge sandstorms every so often like clockwork.

Technically, it is still possible to reach this plane. It's most easily reached by (modern) sions because mirrors do exist here, but it is desolate. Non-sions can occasionally end up here too, but with the resonance levels and time fuckery it is not advised to stay too long.

This map is just to show how the time of day is locked. So for example, the Seat of the Creator is in perpetual midday, the Beacon is stuck in the afternoon, Rest and the glassworks are still stuck in the morning, and the Reach is at night.

The second plane is the Memory plane. It is called this because there are copies of settlements (mostly from the new Reality) on this plane, but not actually anyone in them. The plane is actually empty, like nobody ever actually lived here, as opposed to Time's End where it is empty because everyone is dead. It still remains quite eerie to explore however. It's just tons and tons of ghost cities essentially. Most of these copies look fairly normal (if not just eerie), but not all of them as the Memory plane still contains some resonance. It's not nearly as bad as Time's End but there are some cases where you'll have like, an entire empty city permanently covered in glowing fog.

So as far as Ahveph goes - it is an entity integrated into the whole planet, and it COULD manipulate things where ever, it just chose to focus on the areas the ancient sions lived in. After the planes split it was almost completely immobilized except for this one location. It can still sorta see things but it cannot do shit unless it's here. What it has currently chosen to do is to act as a city and build modern sions to live in it. It's success at being a city like the Sovereigns is kind of debatable but to be fair it is really a different beast entirely anyway.

Named characters that actively live here are Cavi, Torch, Tower, and the Daydreamer. While it is mostly populated by sions it does sometimes allow non-sions as well, like Subore actually lives here. He is also is one of the only humans that has learned modern sionic.

This is also probably a good time to mention modern sions are fairly different from ancient sions. Ancients are all sapient automatons - they have A Process to build some more (there is in fact some "genealogy" and "genetics" involved but it gets...kind of wacky) but they are 100% new builds every time one gets made. On the other hand, Modern sions are not 100% new, they are kind of doppelgangers - specific humans/shifters from reality are identified, their essence copied, changed up a bit, and then the copies are stuffed into a new construct body and let loose in the city. A good example of this is Sy and Tower, Sy being the original guy (a "Source"), and Tower being the sion that was created.

Aaand finally we have the current new Reality plane. It has been entirely repopulated by humans and shifters. The ancient sions have been largely forgotten except for whatever archaeologists dig up. Since they don't have any way to translate the relics being dug up they are just called "The Lost Race". Modern sions are basically a crypid at this point that everyone calls some variation of "mirror demon" and there is no connection that these two are actually related.

The overall technology level is similar to Earth. Maybe slightly ahead, but it is mostly based in the physical sciences with some augmentation with whatever magic relics they've figured out how to work.

Ahveph can technically manipulate things at Five since it's at the same location, but it generally does not. It has however, made a very convenient shortcut for explorers to travel back and forth between Reality and Memory.

Character locations on this plane:

Five - Sy's family had moved here from overseas when he was young. He grew up here but moved somewhere between Calanom and Five. His mom, dad, and older brother still live here though.

Calanom - Yeah so the kids (Cody, Mady, and Static/Shaun) all live here. Jack (Cavi's Source) was from here as well.

Mercury Falls - Subore and Riley (Torch's Source) are from here, though Subore didn't want to stay after Riley passed away.

[corvarrow]

oh my god, there is SO much text in this draft you guys - because there are planes and timelines involved I had to make like 8 versions with different information on each 🤣 I currently have 1 left to write about. I think I will probably post it tomorrow (I can't ever tell who is around on the weekends? so thats why I usually do weekdays) but MAN. It is taking all my willpower not to overexplain literally everything

While moving old stuff in progress to this year's art folder I remembered that I had a map file that I was working on! I just completely forgot about due to vacation last summer. That's right, an actual MAP! 🗺

I started cleaning it up again last night, it's still very basic and just one of the continents as I don't have much experience with mapmaking, BUT I definitely think there's enough here to mark off a couple points of interest for the ancient and current world. This also includes where the sentient cities are/were. C: I think this is going to amount to a fairly text heavy worldbuilding post (my new weekend task) so stay tuuuuuned

[corvarrow]

While moving old stuff in progress to this year's art folder I remembered that I had a map file that I was working on! I just completely forgot about due to vacation last summer. That's right, an actual MAP! 🗺

I started cleaning it up again last night, it's still very basic and just one of the continents as I don't have much experience with mapmaking, BUT I definitely think there's enough here to mark off a couple points of interest for the ancient and current world. This also includes where the sentient cities are/were. C: I think this is going to amount to a fairly text heavy worldbuilding post (my new weekend task) so stay tuuuuuned

[corvarrow]

A pair of bird studies from the other day - the photos were from Pexels. The main goal was actually just to draw larger as I have a bad habit of drawing very small.

Although the bird color doesn't actually matter here, I am kinda skeptical of the finch's labeling on Pexels as it didn't group any more pictures of this kind of bird together like it usually does. 🤔 However I do think it is some kind of finch.

Anyway! I think these turned out very cute C:

[corvarrow]

A pair of bird studies from the other day - the photos were from Pexels. The main goal was actually just to draw larger as I have a bad habit of drawing very small.

Although the bird color doesn't actually matter here, I am kinda skeptical of the finch's labeling on Pexels as it didn't group any more pictures of this kind of bird together like it usually does. 🤔 However I do think it is some kind of finch.

Anyway! I think these turned out very cute C:

[corvarrow]

2024 Books/Games Wrap up and 2025 Art Goals

Aaand its time once again for the stuff lists! I honestly don't think I'm gonna add anything else to the Books Read or Games Played lists this year so I may as well post now. Overall: productive year! Last year's list is here for reference.

Things I’ve read since Jan 2024

Heaven Official's Blessing 1 by MXTX

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Death in the Dark Woods by Annelise Ryan

Long Exposure vol 2 (Graphic Novel)

Heaven Official's Blessing 2 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 3 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 4 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 5 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 6 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 7 by MXTX

Heaven Official's Blessing 8 by MXTX

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

Haunted Hallways anthology (Outland Entertainment)

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Dead Detectives Society anthology (Monstrous Books)

Animus Mundi anthology (Outland Entertainment)

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #1 by MXTX

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #2 by MXTX

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #3 by MXTX

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #4 by MXTX

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #5 by MXTX

To Root Somewhere Beautiful anthology (Outland Entertainment)

SCP Foundation: Red/Yellow/Black Journals (Parabooks) (These are basically a selection of about 100 SCP articles published into 3 books with a lot of nice illustrations)

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

Dragons Rising by Alisha Klapheke

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

Delicious in Dungeon manga 1-14 by Ryoko Kui (full series)

Comments: Yeah...there was definitely a theme here. My favorite book this year was the entire TGCF/Heaven Official's Blessing series. The characters are all SO good, though Xie Lian is my favorite <333

Also this is the first time I've read any of Brandon Sanderson's stuff... overall I think they're pretty good! ALTHOUGH, I will say, I started with Yumi and the Nightmare Painter because I knew it was a standalone book and that was almost a mistake. For whatever reason he uses so many parentheses right off the bat - that's fine in a text post but in a novel I actually find that Quite Annoying so I almost gave up on it early. Glad I didn't though! Ended up liking it and was inspired to try some of his other books, which I enjoyed even more.

Currently Reading: Godkiller by Hannah Kaner. I don't think this is a very long book but I don't have the bandwidth required to finish it in the next couple days

2025 Book Goals: If you can believe it I have more danmei novels waiting in the wings lol. I am probably going to also read more Brandon Sanderson books but he has so many that I've just been checking them out at the library. I'm at the mercy of "whenever it comes in", and just read whatever in between.

—

2024 Video Games:

Super Mario Wonder

Baldur's Gate 3 (and it only took 171 hours)

Iron Lung

Logiart Grimoire

Monster Prom

POOLS

Atomic Heart

Dredge

Trombone Champ (can't believe this has an endgame state lmao)

Dave the Diver

Last Call BBS

Animal Well

Still Wakes the Deep

Crow Country

Nancy Drew and the White Wolf of Icicle Creek (played before a LONG time ago)

Raging Loop (DNF - Visual Novel - got about 7 hours in before deciding it wasn't for me)

Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor

Pseudoregalia

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Escape Simulator

Strange Horticulture

Mouthwashing

Comments: This was an interesting year for me because I finally burned myself out on FF14, which left me open to start playing other games instead. I had gotten to the point where I was going for Triple Triad/Jellytoast mount so I was working on getting cards, and I actually got most of them. HOWEVER, I then got roadblocked by Eureka and Bozja. You have to do their storylines to unlock the NPCs for cards. Now, Eureka you CAN mostly do solo, its a miserable grindfest even if you do manage to get in a party, but you can still solo if no one is around, and the story quests don't require other players, so I got through Euraka. Bozja...no. No not really. The story quests have events that do require other players, and I found it really intimidating aaand my FC didn't want to help x_x So I finally just stopped and started playing BG3. I do want to play Dawntrail at some point but I just got so tired. (and yeah for the record I don't have any dedicated groups to play games with so I do mostly play solo games... FF14 is very solo friendly actually, if you're willing to sometimes put up with roulette queueing, just not some of the side content lol)

ANYWAY. Getting through a "large RPG" was one of my video game goals from last year so I accomplished that with BG3...then I started really getting through my backlog! Obviously I like a lot of different genres. If I had to pick a favorite I would say....🤔 Maybe Still Wakes the Deep storywise, but I'll pick Escape Simulator for gameplay because it's REALLY fun. Puzzle rooms are absolutely my jam. Mouthwashing was also very good, storywise. I am not going to label that one "fun" though. LOL.

Game that I wish I could like more...Animal Well. I didn't know this in advance but this is a very pixel hunt & ARG heavy game as well as being a metroidvania. I LOVE metroidvanias, on the other hand pixel hunts & ARGs are not for me at all. You cannot get to the "true" ending of this game without messing around with all that, and the regular end is like, nothing. Metroidvanias are usually pretty light on story as the format is challenging, but this may as well not have a story at all. So, that's irritating. On the other hand, the game is freaking gorgeous, and is one of the most eerie games I have played in a long time. Love the atmosphere, wasn't thrilled about the other stuff (to those that like it though, you would probably love this!)

Currently Playing: Undecided. Right now I'm thinking either Signalis or Sorry We're Closed. But I also have a lot of Nancy Drew games I picked up from a sale so maybe one of those first instead.

2025 Game Goals: I am tempted to say I'd like to do another "Large RPG" game since I still have several in my backlog, but honestly I would like to continue just knocking smaller games out of the general backlog as its been very satisfying.

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Other 2025 Goals/Art Goals

So this was an interesting year because I ended up doing a 365 landscape drawing challenge in my hobonichi journal...trying to keep up with this has been the ultimate test and has been really draining my brain since like June. However, I am almost done. My ability to doodle random landscape in pen has definitely improved. Am I doing another yearly challenge next year? ....No. Absolutely not lmao. Break now.

Anyway some general goals are:

Finish at least 1 sketchbook

Do/Post more finished pieces

These are copied from last year though I would like to note that I ended up doing all those refs this year instead. Which is fine! They were very badly needed and I'm really happy about them. However my brain has been so drained otherwise I didn't really do much regular finished pieces and now I feel out of practice. 🤔 Ideally I'd like to work on figuring out a coloring process that works for me since it has legitimately always been a problem. But, I think that's also going to be driven a bit by 'what kind of look am I going for', which I have an idea (I love really interesting lighting), so I think I have to explore how to get to That.

3. Finish designing a sona

I got partway through this this year and got sidetracked. It also occurred to me that I could make more than one 🤔 I really want to update my icon art (and like... make some banners) so I kind of need to finish this thought.

[corvarrow]

Pepper Steak // OFF (2008)